Five Hundred Years
by SpellCleaver
Summary: Feyre and the rest of the Court of Dreams participate in Saturday's Women's March.


**Basically, I saw a Tumblr post speculating about what the Court of Dreams would have done at the women's march on Saturday, so this was born. I take no credit for the idea.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own anything.**

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The weather was surprisingly good, like the Cauldron itself had acknowledged the importance of what they were doing today, Elain thought, as she looked around at the crowd. Not that they were in a world dictated by the Cauldron anymore. After a few mess ups Amren had with the book in an attempt to get home, they'd decided to go traversing through the different realms out there, and ended up in this one. As far as Elain could tell, faeries didn't exist here, but they certainly had in some form, judging by the folklore surrounding point eared magical folk who dwelled deep in the woods. Nesta had ordained morbidly that the humans here had driven them to extinction in the way the humans in their world hadn't been able to.

But whatever the reason for their kind's conspicuous absence, Elain wasn't afraid of this world. Not when magic was so deeply rooted in their culture, despite how few people believed in it. Not when so many people seemed to believe in sprites with gossamer wings, and golden hair, and tinkling laughs, over the darker side to their kind.

Despite this seemingly naïve belief, this world was further advanced in many other ways. It had been an embarrassment when people took pity on them and helped them to use a bank machine, or operate a smart phone. After five years, Elain hoped they'd gotten the hang of it, but there were always those odd little things that kept surprisingly them, like that delightful little contraption in the hotel room from this morning, which swallowed sliced bread and spat it out crusted with soot. She'd tried eating it, but grimaced at the taste. Perhaps burnt bread was some sort of odd custom?

But there were problems in this world, too, despite its technological advancement. Sexism, despite, apparently, over a hundred years of feminist campaigning, was just as major an issue here as it had been when ninety percent of Rhysand's court had defected to other courts simply for his appointment of two females as his Second and Third. And it was biased too, with different women of different races, and transgender women, being excluded in far too many cases. Elain sighed just considering it. She'd have thought they'd left such archaic ideas back in Prythian. Although Amren had rolled her eyes when she'd voiced that opinion, claiming that every world she'd visited was similar to each other in ways unthinkable to one as innocent as her.

Sometimes, Elain wondered if the others ever remembered that she had been through the war with Hybern just as much as they had, and suffered alongside them.

Nevertheless, from the way Amren spoke sometimes, they were all children in comparison to her.

Said female was currently bounding about the place with a terrifying look of joy dominant on her face. She held up a sign that read _I'M NOT YOUR BITCH_ , and waved it with a vigour that almost took the heads off a few young woman marching in a close knit group. A mother walking at a stately pace next to a toddler dressed in a Disney's _Cinderella_ costume glared at her, and opened her mouth to protest to the last word written, but Amren glared and the woman shied away. Apparently, even whilst glamoured to look remotely human, Amren's eyes were still objects of curiosity and slight terror.

Despite this minor hiccup, Amren look happier than Elain could remember ever seeing her, with a feline smile filling her face with some sort of monstrous delight. She would shout things occasionally, sometimes in a strange language no one else spoke, but even when she spoke their language all Elain could make out in her mini rants was the words "matriarchal society".

Elain smothered a smile, and glanced back at the main body of the group. Rhys walked slowly in the centre, gently carrying Feyre on his shoulders. Her hands gripped him tightly to keep her from being jostled off, so she carried no signs, but she wore a t-shirt Rhys had designed for her that time he snuck onto her graphics university course and printed a design onto a white top he'd brought in. It was printed in dark blue ink - almost black - with the deceptively beautiful swirling vines and flowers of Feyre's High Lady tattoo bordering a motto that read _Equals In Every Way_.

It made Elain smile just to look at it, and see her long-suffering sister so happy.

Mor was bouncing about with an enthusiasm that was positively infectious. She didn't carry a sign, but she skipped around the place with her blonde hair tied back in two plaits that swung wildly round her face, a beaming smile fixed to her cheeks. Occasionally a chant would rise up, and she would belt it out at the top of her lungs, causing Azriel to grimace. But nothing would dissuade the male from keeping up with his mate as she ran.

Cassian was just as alive as Mor was, with an expression of unbeatable joy on his face as he high fived all the kids they passed. He charmed the parents as he did so, and they allowed him to pick up their child and twirl them round, until they could see over the crowd that had thronged the streets. He stumbled back when the boy he was holding smacked him in the face by accident and he righted himself as he slammed into Rhys, narrowly avoiding knocking the High Lady off. Rhys just gave his brother an exasperated look, and pointedly unfolded the sign he'd been carrying: _I can't believe I have to protest this shit for 500 years_.

Surprisingly enough, no one raised any objections to it.

Nesta seemed just as pumped as Amren, and shouted obscenities which included an impressive amalgamation of names that Elain reluctantly recognised: Tamlin, King of Hybern, Jurian, Ianthe, Tomas Mandray, and more.

But Elain herself slipped back to where Lucien was trailing towards the tail end of the group, looking blessed with his conviction of being there, but also slightly pensive. She hung back until she was walking next to him, then slipped her hand in his. "Penny for your thoughts?"

Her mate smiled briefly. "I was just wondering what Tamlin would think if he was here," he said honestly. "I don't think he'd really see the point."

Elain's stomach twisted. She'd never held a formal conversation with Tamlin, unless the brief exchanges she'd watched between him and Feyre when he'd first broken into their cottage, and at Hybern, counted, but she knew that his fall from grace and subsequent banishment from Prythian had haunted Lucien these past few centuries.

"Eventually, we'll be able to stop fighting for our basic rights," he said, and when Elain looked around, and took in with a smile all the determined faces surrounding them, she had to agree.


End file.
